Tristan: Simon O’Neill; Isolde: Miina-Liisa Värelä; Brangäne: Karen Cargill; Kurwenal: Shen Yang; King Mark: John Relyea; Melot: Neal Cooper; Shepherd/Young Sailor: Stuart Jackson; London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Robin Ticciati
What a work this is…I feel incredibly privileged to have seen in just over a month two Wagner operas in these very difficult times. I last heard Tristan live at Bayreuth in 2017, with Thielemann conducting an extraordinarily powerful performance, and with the excellent Stephen Gould as Tristan, though in a problematic production by Katharina Wagner. The intensity of the experience of watching Tristan, particularly with a translation to hand, is extraordinary, and in a sense enhanced by this semi-staging (a full staging at Glyndebourne being prevented by Covid), which focuses attention on the characters and their thinking and reactions to each other. It was more than a concert performance – there was a set of narrow raised platforms, for the singers to move along, and go and up and down on, together with some effective subtle lighting; having clear large subtitles also helped. There were some, but fairly minimal, props – swords, crowns for Marke and Isolde, and the chalice, together with a rather mysterious Greek actors’ mask for the shepherd which I didn’t understand and a curious staff for the same figure. Costumes were modern-ish – Isolde wore a blue cloak and dress, while Tristan, Marke, Brangaene, Kurwenal were in shades of black and white. Within the constraints of the narrow platforms the singers acted with as much credibility as they could muster, though there was little or no physical contact between Isolde and Tristan – this however might have been a feature of the original Lehnhoff production on which this was based. The part of the third Act where Melot, and Kurwenal both die, and Marke and Brangaene come on stage got a bit muddled, in terms of who was where and when.
Miina-Liisa Värelä received rather tepid reviews in the newspapers but I thought she was the star of the show. She could ride above the orchestra with her high notes and offered some beautifully soft singing in ‘O sink hernieder’ and the final ‘mild und leise’; she could also convey effectively Isolde’s rage in Act 1. Neither she nor Simon O’Neill made for a very passionate couple but that might, as I say, have been more to do with the semi-staging context and original production context. Simon O’Neill’s voice cuts through the orchestra well enough but I don’t find him in this role to be a singer sensitive enough to words, and he wasn’t varying his tone sufficiently. However as usual with heldentenors, you have to be grateful that they’re there at all and up to singing the role…..except that O’Neill didn’t make it all the way through!! The love duet sounded fine in its louder parts but O’Neill’s voice seemed a bit frayed in its lower registers in the quieter parts. An announcement was made that he had lost his voice, before the Third Act began, and that his cover, the singer playing Melot, Neal Cooper, would sing the role of Tristan from the side of the stage, while O’Neill acted it. Unfortunately he was on the opposite end of the stage from where I was sitting , so I didn’t really get a sense of the full power of his voice, but Neal Cooper seemed to make a very good job of Act 3 when I listened the next day on BBC I-Player, and having him there at the side in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the performance – he was a very worthwhile singer to hear.
Karen Cargill was in great and expressive voice. Shen Yang had a beautiful voice as Kurwenal, but maybe was slightly wooden as a stage presence. John Relyea did all that was required of him as King Marke.
Robin Ticciati was very effective in accompanying the singers. The orchestra under his direction had a very wide dynamic range, sometimes almost chamber-music in sound and scale, and Act 1 was particularly effective in ratcheting up the tension minute by minute. In Act 2, good use was made of the RAH spaces by the offstage horns and trumpets. Perhaps the orchestra was not whipped up into the same sort of passionate frenzy that Thielemann had created in the love duet and Tristan’s Act 3 monologues but there were moments of great beauty in some of the quieter music. There was outstanding work from the LPO – particularly the woodwind (flutes especially) and brass – but really the whole orchestra played marvellously. The chorus was pre-recorded (Covid, I think, rather than cost) and there were slight lapses of synchronicity in Act 1. I wasn’t wholly convinced at all points by Ticciati’s conducting, which seemed at times to be slowing down and speeding up too often, but it was a good enough pacing of the work, and there was much that was exciting and beautiful in what he and the orchestra offered.
Altogether it was wonderful to hear this work again and once more seek to understand its mysteries and beauties, which is the work of a lifetime
John's musical journey 